Hope eludes leper colony

BOKARO: Last Saturday, an otherwise uneventful day, over 400 residents of the 40-year-old Ashadan Leprosy Colony, situated on the outskirts of a town near Bokaro railway station, had surprise visitors.
District administration officials, including Bokaro DC Aarva Rajkamal, Chas SDO Sanjay Singh and Rajesh Thakur, member of Helping Hand, a social organization; brought happiness, albeit for a few hours, to the home colony where people hardly expect a visitor.
The colony, which is the biggest in the state, is home to about 147 families, including children, who have been ostracized thanks to the age-old social stigma. Worse still is the fact that half the population of this colony has been living a life of neglect even after being cured.
This has forced a majority of the residents to take to begging. There is no water supply to or electricity in the colony in spite of being situated in a main town. Every resident of this colony is below poverty line (BPL), but none of them is listed on the government BPL list. The state has no records of how many lepers have been cured and how many are still suffering from this disease.
The colony has a number of old and ailing people, widows, physically challenged residents, but none of them have been able to avail of any pension under the government schemes provided to them. "The government schemes have not yet reached them," said Ramesh Tewary, a resident. In spite of being reduced to penury, the residents gave a warm welcome to the officials. Children of the lepers put up a dance and song performance even as temperatures soared to 43°C.
Rajkamal visited houses to assess the situation. Many widows stopped Rajkamal and Singh on their way to relate their woes. They sought old-age and widow pensions and other basic amenities. Their condition touched Rajkamal, who announced that he would be organizing a special camp for the residents within a month.
Though it is difficult to provide benefits like Indira Awaas and others to the residents of the colony as it has come up unauthorized on a railway land, he said he would try his best to help them. "I will soon return to solve your problems," he had assured them.
However, it remains to be seen how fast the administration act to provide comfort to a section of people who hardly have a life, leave apart dreams.